Carry-On is the dumb-as-rocks holiday crowd pleaser of the year, and many involved in its execution are game for embracing the buffoonery.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra had graduated from low-budget horror and slick low-budget action films to the Hollywood studio big leagues. To be clear, this graduation implies only an elevation in budgetary cushion, as his films for Disney and Warners — Jungle Cruise and Black Adam respectively — gave up propulsive energy for glossy studio sheen. Jungle Cruise is mildly entertaining and pleasant enough, for what it’s worth. But it feels like a lazy river compared to even the lowliest of Liam Neeson thriller. And Black Adam…well, we saw how that turned out.

In returning to the high concept action-thriller in the vein of the airport novel, but doing so under the Netflix banner, Collet-Serra scales back from the grotesque excesses of Black Adam but retains the artificial gloss of the major media corporation tentpole offering (the budget is likely substantially less than a bungled DC movie, to be fair). This combination of genre and production value translate into a film Netflix can (and has) effectively marketed to its user-base as the movie to watch this Holiday when you have absolutely no idea what to watch (if you’d asked me, I’d suggest Kneecap for a much more creatively juiced film with a lot of energy. Also currently on Netflix).

Carry-On follows the most recognizable of blockbuster narrative frameworks. The low-on-the-totem-pole sad sack has lost the verve of life, which makes the holiday season even more dispiriting. What’s worse: he has to work on Christmas Eve. Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton), who has been working for TSA at LAX for a number of years without a promotion, has recently learned of his girlfriend Nora’s (Sofia Carson) pregnancy.

This opening of a new door in their relationship and his life has reignited (with a heavy-handed push from Nora) Ethan’s disappointment with his lot in life. With Nora in his ear, telling him that she misses the man who had an aspiration for career development, Ethan convinces his boss (Dean Norris) to give him an impromptu “trial run” as a bag checker. Unfortunately for Ethan, today is the worst day to be put in a new role.

Ethan’s promotion sets off a chain reaction that results in him being unwittingly roped into a machine-like terrorist conspiracy to get a bomb onto a plane. A “shadowy” figure in a black coat and a baseball cap (Jason Bateman) literally gets in Ethan’s ear and informs Ethan that Nora’s life will be endangered unless the plan is successfully carried out. And it is up to Ethan to allow the bomb to pass through bag check unmolested.

The script from T.J. Fixman does its best to move like clockwork, where every little piece of information must circle back to be relevant to the overall plot and Ethan’s attempts to thwart it. Characters basically point with their eyes at objects as if to say, remember this for later, dear spectator. Meanwhile, tiresome and superficial character relationships develop in real time alongside the increasing homeland security threat. For whatever reason, Nora and Ethan’s relationship are as important and vital to the possibility of hundreds of deaths (and the two are intertwined in a rather clunky and silly way).

It is the type of film where you can foresee where most things are going to go, where most of the little twists of the knife are going to come. It is also the type of film where you can see the lines being drawn between individual plot points. Frankly, it comes off like reading a beat sheet (this happens, and then this, and then this, and then…). The lack of narrative ingenuity is made up for by sleek visual moments. At least, this would be the case, if the film did not look like an LAX advertisement hijacked by a John McClane stand-in. The best and most visually engaging sequence occurs on the conveyor belts transporting checked bags, and it is superior because it is the only time in the movie where there is a different lighting scheme. Most everything else is perfectly lit at all times, flattening everything into a commercial aesthetic.

This includes the sequence that most people will talk about when they talk about this movie with their friends. The car sequence is admirably done in camera, which allows us to see every moment of what is a nicely outlined series of events. That said, what we see does not look very good. In making sure we see it all, the film is painted on the edges by CG that looks downright ugly.

Importantly, some actors in this are professional enough to know exactly what type of movie they are in. Danielle Deadwyler, namely, demonstrates her range with this film coming right on the heels of The Piano Lesson, a film where she gives a full and very actorly performance. Here, Deadwyler slabs on the ham and goes full tilt into the most cliched of cliche action movie characters: the good cop that understands the bigger picture better than her colleagues.

Egerton and Bateman, meanwhile, play this mostly straight. Bateman’s delivery is a constant attempt to sound menacing, and I never fully bought into it. Egerton fares fine donning an American accent and letting his furrowed brow do a lot of work. Still, the two have to prop up this big Die Hard-in-an-airport movie, and it barely hangs together by the end. And yes, Die Hard already did Die Hard in an airport.

Carry-On does just enough legwork to make the film entertaining and watchable. But its ceiling is quite low. Even if you forgive the many lapses in logic and continuity and just go along for the ride, this thrill ride only contains mild excitement.

Carry-On: C

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As always, thanks for reading!

—Alex Brannan (Letterboxd, Facebook)